But interacting with fandoms and getting to see amazing content from so many talented people is such a treat. I can't believe I managed to stay away for so long.
Can someone PLEASE just come and put all of these wardrobe pieces in my closet immediately? I love them.
wardrobe appreciation » Lucy Hutton ☆ The Hating Game (2021)
I've ended up falling down a Dramione rabbit hole. I read some really amazing ones (Wait and Hope and Draco Malfoy and The Mortifying Ordeal of Being In Love are probably my favorites, although Measure of a Man was also PHENOMENAL).
However, I've just finished Manacled. It was so well written and absolutely brilliant, but holy shit on a stick if it didn't break my heart.
The alternate ending to the Battle of Hogwarts was worse than even my panicked teenaged brain could have come up with back when Deathly Hallows actually came out. I wept for characters I've always loved in ways I didn't think I could.
I finished the flashback scenes last night and thought about them all morning, until I forced myself to get back into it and read the rest of the story. Which was still devastating. But honestly.
I am currently drowning my sorrows in Meg Cabot's cheerful writing and then I'll have to reread something funny and familiar. All the people telling me they've reread Manacled, like, HOW?! I need a few years away from it before I could think of rereading.
I feel like this is just writing in general. I'm trying so hard to approach all writing with a, "this is just for me - this is just for fun" attitude. It's difficult, but it's helping.
Auror Malfoy ffs is my Roman Empire I swear
Oh my gosh I want them. So so pretty! I genuinely wish I had the time to teach myself to bind, because do you know how many fanfic books I'd have on my shelves? And Wait & Hope would absolutely be on the top shelf. That story is just...ah. I love it.
My take on Wait and Hope by @mightbewriting ✨ I was inspired by some versions of the Penguin Clothbound Classics I saw on Pinterest. Wait and Hope was one of the first Dramione fanfics I ever read, and it holds a super special place in my heart. I just want to put this Draco in a little jar and keep him safe 🥹 WAIT AND HOPE is free to read on ao3 — keep fandom free.
@procraftination_customs, thank you SO much for sharing this amazing typeset with us, you’re an absolute angel! 🤍
@tlaquetzqui thank you so much! This is spectacular. I've been looking for days trying to work out what rank he'd be in - my initial thought was Pilot Officer, which I think might still be right. Such a shame, as Squadron Leader felt more fitting, but he'd be too young, even in wartime. I don't necessarily need the historical accuracy, but I want it to at least make sense to anyone reading it, you know?
My MMC is 25, my FMC is 23 - I'm also looking at the roles she would have played during the war, though I'm kind of looking more into the Night Witches sort of arena for that.
Thank you so much again - clearing up some very confusing and vague aspects of my research here! :)
Does anyone know or have any resources they found particularly helpful?
This is so painfully accurate.
First day working in a bookstore, I had a gentleman come to the desk:
"Do you have any books on kidnapping?" My colleague and I both freeze. "Because my wife is really into it."
I look at him and without thinking go, "I hope you don't mean a how-to guide!"
He laughs and says, "No no! Like, books about kidnapping."
Visible relief on mine and my colleague's faces. After a while, he starts talking about his wife watching a show on Netflix - something to do with a serial killer who kidnaps people and traps them.
"In a bookstore basement? Oh yeah, I know just the series! Follow me, sir!"
He bought the entire You series by Caroline Kepnes. And some true crime stuff.
It's been 3 months and I'm still genuinely nervous that this man is alive.
My first Guardian Books cartoon for 2024
Greenteacups genuinely understands the Harry Potter characters on such an insane level. This kind of character study is spectacular.
Re: Hermione’s parents. To me it always felt like THEY were also very responsible for being out of the picture. First year Hermione is a child who feels like breaking the rules is worse than death and is very sure that she is going to be expelled at any given moment. Her attempts at making friends are laughably bad. We can assume that she had difficult relationship with authority figures growing up, where she had to be perfect or else.
Mr Weasley is shown to be trying to make contact with the Grangers through a topic that is interesting and not intimidating to them, and we never hear about him getting hit back with “yes yes electricity, now tell us everything about your world”, which seeing that Arthur Weasley is a grown ass man who actually can be quite subtle was presumably the point.
Finally, Hermione obliviating her parents tells us a lot about Hermione, true, but it also tells us everything about her perception of them. A 17 year old teenager thought that it wasn’t a big deal to erase all of her parents’ recollection of her, maybe permanently. To me that action speaks of anger at them but also complete and utter lack of belief that they want to do anything with her.
I thought it was a very sad thing happening to Hermione behind the scenes, one that Ron might have been aware of, but not Harry.
Arthur's interactions with the Grangers are an interesting point. I agree that it's probably an overture to the Grangers, with the bonus of being something he likes talking about; Arthur is restoring a car engine, he almost assuredly knows how electricity works.
I don't know that we can assume Hermione had strict parents per se, though. Book 1 gives us a very realistic portrait of a socially awkward eleven-year-old whose inability to connect with people her own age, due to some combination of being smarter than them and a bit stuck-up, has manifested in a desperate desire for approval from older role models. She doesn't seem to be afraid of them; she's not afraid of McGonagall or Dumbledore, and she's certainly not afraid of Snape, though she would have the most reason to be. She just wants them to like her, and probably all the more because she knows most people don't.
We do see that as the series goes on, she develops a distaste for authority, particularly authority that's abused, but that seems like a natural consequence of Hermione never facing any consequences for breaking the rules. Her fears rotate more around being expelled, and losing access to the world of magic, than they do being 'punished' as such by McGonagall or Dumbledore. She's not afraid of them, she's afraid of failing. It's a subtle difference, but an important one for her relationship with her parents, I think.
I agree that it indicates a staggering problem in their relationship when she basically writes off her value in their lives, though I'd add that we don't know what or if they talked to her about the war beforehand. It strikes me that we actually don't know most things about the circumstances of Hermione Obliviating her parents — did she try to talk it out with them first? Convince them to flee? Did they refuse? Was this a first resort, or the last? All of those change what we might think of the Grangers' relationship with their daughter, and we just don't have the answers to those questions in the book.
When I tell you I would sell my soul for this house...
Bitches don't want money, they want the Practical Magic house